Entrained gas has been regarded as disturbance to measurements based on Coriolis meters, since measurement accuracy can be degraded because of this disturbance. Recent research from Endress+Hauser has discovered that different types of gas bubbles, namely free bubbles and suspended bubbles, have various impact on the meter measurement performance. It is crucial to identify the bubble pattern in the measuring tube of a Coriolis meter to make a diagnosis and reduce the negative influence of the disturbance accordingly. For free bubbles that typically cause inhomogeneity of a medium, the fluctuation of the resonance frequency of the measuring tube in a Coriolis meter is directly correlated to the existence of this type of bubbles, since this medium under a flowing condition causes density fluctuation to the meter as gas density is typically much lower than that of a liquid. For homogenous suspended bubbles that lead to a significantly increased compressibility of a medium, the innovative Multi-Frequency Technology in Promass Q sensor offers the means to qualitatively detect the existence of this type of bubbles and quantitatively calculate the volume fraction of the gas phase, based on its ability to derive the speed of sound in a medium containing such bubbles. Identification of the type of bubbles helps not only for crediting the measurement reliability, but also for obtaining more detailed medium properties, and in turn a better process insight, with which a process optimization can be enabled to improve the quality of production.

Very low flow calibrations are important in several areas of pharmaceutical, microfluidic and health care applications where volumetric dosage or delivery at given flow rates are crucial for the process. Not only continuous flow rates are commonly used in the health sector, but also pulsed flow rates consisting of constant delivered volumes at given time intervals. One known application is the delivery of Insulin with tethered or patch pumps. These constant volumes can be of the order of several tens or hundreds of nanoliters. As the delivery times can vary up to several minutes, it is not appropriate to determine an average flow rate of the delivered volume. It is more advisable to determine the average volume and the average time interval of delivery.
The METAS Microflow facility has been upgraded to perform measurements with insulin pumps delivering a volume of 500 nl at a given time interval of several minutes. The updated design and new aspects of the discontinuous volume collection from the tethered or patch pumps are discussed in this paper. First calibration results of insulin pumps are also presented.

The study here presented concerns the characterization, withchromatographic (high-performance liquid chromatography, HPLC) andspectroscopic (Raman spectroscopy and UV-Vis spectroscopy)techniques, of red dyestuffs used to dye the yarns of ancienttapestries. Following the ancient recipes the yarns (wool andsilk) have been dyed using natural red dyes such as madder, kermesand cochineal. By SEM-EDX (scanning electron microscopy coupledwith energy dispersive X-ray analysis) the yarns morphology hasbeen investigated and the presence of the metals responsible forthe specific mordants employed has been highlighted. The samplesthus obtained have been studied in order to build a referencedatabase that can be used later for the identification of the dyes used by the ancient tapestry manufacturers. Attention has been also paid to develop a non-destructive approach to be applied in-situ for the analysis of the ancient tapestries.

The analysis of bone surface modifications (BSM), such as butchering marks, is necessary to better understand how the exploitation of animal resources by past hominins influenced their biological and cultural evolution. Even if several studies have been carried out on this topic in the last decades, there are still some phenomena which need to be thoroughly understood. Here we try to quantify how can the depth of cut marks influence the shape of their crosssections. This is of crucial important for a valid interpretation of shape data collected on archaeological BSMs. In particular, two groups of cut marks’ cross-sections experimentally produced with two flint burins on a cattle innominate are analysed in this paper by means of 3D microscopy and geometric morphometrics. The two sets of striae show a different depth and a different cross-sectional shape. In particular, shallower cross sections are characterized by less steep walls and consequently by a wider opening angle. If analysis moves to the characteristics of the cutting edge of the burins, it comes out that the different shape between the two groups of striations is probably a function of the way in which the tool penetrates into the bone. These results are relevant for taphonomy, since similar difference in cross-sectional shape were found between marks produced with different raw materials. This contribution highlights the importance of considering the characteristics of tool s cutting edges in evaluating the meaning of shape variability of cut marks cross-sections.

Some copper alloy coins of the Ptolemaic period from a private collection, providing valuable evidence for both archaeometric as well as materials science and corrosion studies, have been investigated. The coins were found in the ancient city of Bubastis, known as Tell Basta, in the Nile Delta, Egypt. The coins have been examined by optical microscopy for their metallurgical structure, analysed by X-ray fluorescence and Electron Dispersion Spectroscopy for their composition, and by X-ray diffraction for the characterisation of their corrosion products. An attempt has been made to remove part of their corrosion products by mild chemical cleaning procedures. In some areas the coins are heavily corroded by chlorides, however most of the inscriptions on the coins themselves are still decipherable. Assumptions are made on the coins provenance, the production period, the manufacturing technique and the burial environmental conditions.